Category: Past Issues

Andrew D. Hurwitz Recent challenges to Arizona legislation impacting elections have typically invoked the federal Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) of 1965. But a trilogy of Supreme Court decisions has diminished the sweep of that legislation. In Shelby County v. Holder,…

Andrew W. Gould & Erica Leavitt Arizona’s courts, like most courts, have wrestled with the limits of tort liability in negligence cases. Two basic frameworks have been developed to address this issue: duty and causation. Under a duty framework, a…

Kent E. Cattani & Paul J. McMurdie Arizona’s procedure for determining whether to seek the death penalty—a decision by an elected County Attorney—was established when Arizona became a state in 1912. At that time, however, a decision to seek the…

Clint Bolick State constitutionalism—the practice of state courts deciding cases on independent state constitutional grounds—is a vital yet underdeveloped attribute of American federalism. Our system of dual sovereignty ensures the capacity of state courts to interpret their own constitutions to…

Abby Dockum In the late hours of October 2, 2009, Jonathan Castro staggered drunkenly through Los Angeles, speaking unintelligibly and bumping into passersby. Concerned for his safety, police officers arrested Castro on a misdemeanor public drunkenness charge and transported him…

Ekow N. Yankah In February 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-five-year-old Black jogger in Georgia, was chased down by a group of armed, White men in trucks, trapped, shot, and killed. His killers pursued Arbery because they suspected him—with no evidence…

Kenneth W. Simons Under the willful blindness (WB) doctrine widely employed in federal criminal prosecutions, courts extend a statutory “knowledge” or “willfulness” requirement to encompass “willful blindness” or “deliberate indifference.” For example, courts conclude that for drug possession or distribution…

Stephen J. Morse “[E]ven a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.” The thesis of this Article is simple: As long as we maintain the current folk psychological conception of ourselves as intentional and potentially rational creatures, as…

Erik Luna Many of the modern challenges of mens rea, the mental state element of crime, stem from the purported ambiguities of legislation.1 Sometimes the issue involves uncertainty in interpreting a specified mental state—whether, for instance, “willfully” requires an appreciation…